Flying

One of my hobbies is writing music - it's not very good, but it keeps me amused. Like solving cryptic crosswords, I find moving notes around to form melodies, harmonies and patterns to be immensely soothing.
Problem is, I never finish anything I write! Some pieces have been "in progress" now for over ten years, but in recent months I've been working hard at them, trying to get them into shape. Two pieces are nearly "complete" now and I'll be posting them on the web soon so that even if no one ever hears them I can at least say I've "published" them.

One piece I finally got around to finishing recently is a piece I've called Flying, and dedicated to a friend who is flying off to live in New Zealand soon. I'll miss her dreadfully - we talk everyday at the moment and I just know that, despite our best intentions, distractions will mean we talk less and less. But we'll never stop caring about each other; that's what true friendship is all about.

Unlike most of my music, which tends to be "classical" in tone, Flying is upbeat and modern. I don't pretend that it's any good, and the mix isn't perfect, but I think it gets across the idea of movement and excitement. Technically, the piece is based on a "ground bass" which is repeated in canon to form a repeated underlying harmony, over which several distinct melodies weave their way. It ends with a melancholy tone, as though the plane drifts off out of sight leaving us with our memories.

It's an MP3 file, about 4.2 megabytess in size - feel free to download it and have a listen, then let me know what you think. Created in Xx and mixed in Garageband on an iMac.